


it's my own (and i'll keep owning it)

by softwheeze



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Friends to Lovers, High School, M/M, Mutual Pining, Oblivious Shane Madej, Pining, Shane Madej Is So Whipped, and what about it, art and history nerd!shane, feminine!ryan, ryan is a sophomore shane and sara are juniors steven is a senior, some slurs in later chapters, yes i made thomas sanders the history teacher
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:07:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22125571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softwheeze/pseuds/softwheeze
Summary: “What if he’s not gay?!” Shane exclaimed.“Shane,honey,” Sara said, “He came to school inred lipstickandmascara. I’m not the type to judge too quickly, but I’m gonna take a wild guess and say he’s definitely into dudes. At the veryleasta bisexual.”OR: the feminine!ryan fic
Relationships: Ryan Bergara/Shane Madej, Shane Madej & Sara Rubin, Steven Lim & Shane Madej
Comments: 14
Kudos: 84





	it's my own (and i'll keep owning it)

**Author's Note:**

> feminine!ryan is an au that ive had for basically a year now in the back of my head. but recently i've come up with an au verse where the boys are in high school. here it is! if i don't finish this fic you are cordially invited to whoop me in the ass.
> 
> title from S.L.U.T by bea miller.

♥ Shane ♥

Shane wished he liked missing school. He missed the days when you could fake being sick to miss school, and if you succeeded you could spend the whole day with not a care in the world. But as soon as high school starts you quickly learn that skipping one day could be fatal if you didn’t want to be bombarded with work the day you came back.

So when Shane had to miss three days of school because of a horrible fever in november, he wasn’t very happy. He spent the days watching YouTube and eating pretzels, and the nights frantically texting his classmates and friends in his classes about the homework, and trying to complete and turn them in to the best of his ability. Plus, Shane didn’t exactly hate school either. He quite liked learning (learning about the subjects he was interested in, anyways) and he had a close group of a couple friends who he loved very dearly in a couple of his classes as well. All in all, missing school sucked.

Walking into school finally on Thursday with clear-framed glasses on (he didn’t want to put in contacts), eye bags and messy looking hair, Shane just felt plain stressed. He hoped he didn’t miss too much information and work. At least he could breathe through his nose.

Looking at his watch, he realized it was 7:58 and if he didn’t hurry his ass up he was going to be late for AP Gov. Lovely.

Shane nearly tripped over his own damn feet scurrying up two flights of stairs to get to class. He slid into his seat, hoping he wasn’t sweaty from the trek up. He scanned the classroom for a particular person, and he locked eyes with her: Sara Rubin, his best friend since kindergarten, the first person he had come out to and vice versa. Shane smiles back at the memory fondly.

The two were on a camping trip for school in, what, 7th grade? They were sitting on a rock, looking up at the stars and enjoying the fresh air (and the silence of their classmates. They were the only ones still awake, thankfully). Sara and Shane had been having playful banter until they both went silent for a moment. Shane hesitated, then said, “Sara.”

“Yeah?” Sara had replied.

“I need to tell you something.” Shane quickly added, “But-- promise not to tell anybody.”

Sara smiled playfully. “Shane, you know me. I ain’t no snitch.”

Shane snorted, rolling his eyes. Sara scooched closer to him as Shane leaned in to whisper, “I think I’m gay.”

Sara blinked for a moment, and then smiled, teasing but not unkind. “I _knew_ you liked Evan.”

“Wha- I- what? Huh?” Shane sputtered, cheeks turning pink as Sara laughed. 

“You’re always eyeing him in class,” She said. “I thought something was up, but this just confirms it. You have a big fat crush on Evan-!”

“SHH!” Shane shushed her. They were in big trouble if anyone woke up. “I do _not_ like Evan. I just think he’s kinda cute. There’s a difference.” He crossed his arms defensively.

“Whatever. Can I tell you something too? You can’t tell anyone either.”

“Cross my heart and hope to die.”

“I think I’m a lesbian.” Sara whispered. 

“I knew you liked Jen!”

“_Shane Alexander Madej-!_”

Sara and Shane exchanged smiles (Sara’s was a borderline smirk, though. Shane was very confused) and Shane was pulled out of the memory as the bell rang and the teacher greeted the class and started the lesson.

The next three classes passed by in a blink. Shane wrote down all the shit he missed and had to make up, all the studying he had to do. When lunch rolled around and Shane sat down at a table with Steven Lim and Sara with a tray of soggy chicken nuggets and a milk carton, he was quite overwhelmed.

Sara, ever the observant one (sarcasm), noticed this. “You look chipper today, Shane.” She teased. Shane scoffed.

“Lay off me a bit, I’m recovering from my tragic illness,” He joked back, tone completely serious as he sipped his milk.

“We missed you, Shane. You missed a lot here, too.” Steven spoke up. Steven Lim had joined Shane and Sara in friendship freshman year. He had moved from New York. The three had a very similar sense of humor and he was quick to join Shane and Sara’s friendship circle. They’d all been best friends ever since.

“Oh, yeah? What’d I miss?”

“Josh got suspended,” Sara offered. 

Shane feigned surprise, “_No._” He gasped overdramatically. Josh practically walked through the hallways high off his ass. He got suspended a lot. The three always wondered why he hasn’t just been expelled yet. “Again? Let me guess, same old shit?”

“Same old shit.” Sara and Steven said in unison.

“What a surprise,” Shane said sarcastically. “Anything else I missed?” He started eating his chicken nuggets (they were surprisingly good-tasting, despite bring, well, soggy) while the other two thought for a moment.

“Oh!” Sara exclaimed. “There’s a new boy.” Shane didn’t like the look of Sara’s grin turning into a smug smirk.

“Sara, I swear to God,” He warned, exasperated. Sara continued talking, as Sara Rubin tends to do.

“He started here the day you were gone. Came to my Chem class wearing red lipstick and mascara. He didn’t talk much but he seemed nice. Dunno his name, but he’s real cute, Shane.” Sara winked and Shane groaned.

“Sara, the last time you tried to set me up with someone it didn’t go so well.” Shane reminded her, and they both cringed at the memory. (8th grade. The guy was painfully heterosexual. Some... _choices_ were made. All in all, not a good situation.)

“Yeah, but the last time you dated someone was when _we_ had to pretend to date to stop people from thinking that we were gay after that incident!” Sara exclaimed. “And that wasn’t even real!”

Steven looked thoughtful. “She’s got a point, Shane.” He said to him.

Shane groaned. “Oh, God, not you too, Steven!”

Steven shrugged. “Hey, I think you should give him a chance. You need a little action.”

“Says the guy who’s been pining after Andrew Ilnyckyj since he moved here.”

“Says the guy who seriously needs to get his dick sucked.” Christ, Steven Lim.

“What if he’s not gay?!” Shane exclaimed.

“Shane, _honey,_” Sara said, “He came to school in _red lipstick_ and _mascara_. I’m not the type to judge too quickly, but I’m gonna take a wild guess and say he’s definitely into dudes. At the very _least_ a bisexual.”

Shane sighed, not wanting to discuss this any more. “Let’s just drop it. I don’t need a boyfriend, anyways. I have Tom Cruise. Who needs anything more than Tommy Cruise?”

Sara shrugged. “You got me there.” And the conversation ended at that. 

\--♡--

After lunch, Shane had history with Mr. Sanders. Mr. Sanders was Shane’s favorite teacher, mostly because in addition to actually being able to teach, he was also gay, which was something Shane could relate to. As Shane walked into the classroom, he noticed that his classmates weren’t sitting in their normally assigned seats. But there was no sub; Mr. Sanders was sitting at his desk, looking at his laptop. So that could only mean one thing: there was a project assigned and he didn’t know his partner.

Hesitating, Shane went up to Mr. Sanders’s desk. The teacher looked up and smiled. “Heya, kiddo. What’s up?”

“Uh, well… I was absent these past couple days, and I don’t have a partner…” Shane told him. He saw the realization dawn on Mr. Sanders’s face. 

“Oh!” The teacher said. “You’re sitting next to Ryan.” He pointed past Shane and Shane turned around to see a tanned boy wearing a dark gray turtleneck, white high-waisted pants and a silver necklace around his neck. The first thing that runs through Shane’s mind as he locks eyes with the boy is _Oh my god, he’s my type._ He nods to Mr. Sanders and walks towards the boy, who hasn’t stopped looking at Shane.

“Hi,” Shane says to him. “I’m Shane, I think I’m your partner?” Now that they’re a little closer, he notices that the boy is wearing mascara and clear, shiny lip gloss. _Holy shit, this is the boy Sara was talking about, isn’t he?_

“I’m Ryan.” Said the boy, and he smiled a shy, but quite bright grin. 

“Are you new?” Shane asked, even though he already knew the answer. “I haven’t seen you around.”

Ryan nodded quietly, looking down at his notebook, which had some scribbly, colorful notes and doodles in it. “Mhm. I moved from California a couple weeks ago. I only just started here two days ago, though.” Shane sat down at the desk next to Ryan as the boy continued, “What about you? I haven’t seen you around, either. Are you new, too?” 

Shane answered him seriously. “No, I’ve been out sick since Tuesday. I’ve lived here my whole life, though.”

Ryan cringed. “Ouch. You have a work overload?”

“Yup, I’m gonna have a lot to do tonight.”

Ryan smiled at him sympathetically. “Then let’s try to get most of our work done here so that you don’t kill yourself trying to catch up.”

The boys spent the next half hour working. Their project was a research project. They had to research an event, any event, in history, and create a poster, make a google slideshow, or write a report about it. They had to include at least 3 resources, including some sort of real-world interaction. That could be an interview, an investigation, a visit to some historical place related to your project, etc. Ryan and Shane easily chose to make a poster because at the end of the day neither of them were going to gather up the motivation to write a six-page report. 

What they struggled with, though, was coming up with a research topic.

“Let’s do the dancing plague!” Shane suggested. Ryan’s face scrunched up in confusion.

“What’s the dancing plague?”

“In 1518 in France, people danced until they died. And nobody knows why!” Shane explained.

“Sounds too vague. Let’s not,” Ryan dismissed the idea, much to Shane’s disappointment. 

Shane rolled his eyes. “Why are you dismissing all of my perfectly usable ideas?”

Ryan shrugged. “I dunno, I just wanna find the right one to work with. You know? I don’t wanna get stuck with a topic only one of us is interested in for the next, like, month or so.”

“So you don’t trust me?” Shane put his hand on his chest near his heart in mock hurt.

“We literally met like, half an hour ago.” Ryan said.

Shane laughed. “Alright, fair.”

Ryan smiled once again at him. “Why don’t we just figure out who’s going to do what for now? Li,e who’s gonna research what, who’s gonna take notes when we go out and investigate whatever we pick, stuff like that.”

Shane furrowed his brow. “Wouldn’t it just be easier to choose what we’re going to do first?”

“Well, we’re not really getting anywhere with that right now.”

“Okay, you have a point.”

The boys worked and worked until the bell rang. Once all their classmates started to shuffle out of their seats and out the door, Shane and Ryan did too. They glanced at each other one last time as they headed out the door. 

In the hallways, there were obnoxious straight boys yelling for their friends, girls giggling and chatting, people standing in the middle of the hallway, people already making out and all of it made Shane consider trying to get sick again. Usually he liked school but today felt a little darker. Like something was missing.

He was almost at his locker when he heard a “Hey, Shane?” and almost tripped right over Ryan, standing in front of him and looking up at him with his big brown eyes. Shane stopped in his tracks, his eyes growing wide. 

“Ryan?” Shane chuckled, “I almost tripped over you.”

Ryan smiled, a bit more shy than he’d been in history class. “Ha, yeah, uhm,” He suddenly became very interested in his shoes. “I have another idea for our project. Are you…” Shane stared at him, silently goading him to continue, “..Free..? Today? Like right now? We can go to the library and chat for a bit, you don’t have to stay for long, obviously, but I just had this idea that I really would like to share and--” He was cut off.

“Ryan,” Shane laughed lightly. “Yes. Sure. Of course. I have…” He checked his watch, “An hour or two until I really have to be home, anyways.”

Ryan’s smile brightened. “Okay, then. Let’s go.”

\--♡--

In the library, Shane and Ryan sat down in a more quiet corner, away from the other students who were also there to study. They had to keep their volume level down, which was quite hard for mostly Shane. After about fifteen straight minutes of bouncing off ideas, Shane ran a hand through his unkempt hair in annoyance. “Buddy,” He said, and Ryan looked up from where he was chewing on his pen, practically glaring at his notebook. “We haven’t really gotten anywhere, and it’s been fifteen minutes.”

Ryan furrowed his brow. “That’s not true!” He exclaimed, pointing at the list of ideas with his pen. “We totally came up with a bunch of completely usable ideas.”

Shane looked over to his notebook and read over the list. “If by ‘completely usable ideas’ you mean ‘Ben Franklin’s sexcapades, the fact that the pyramids were built by drunks, and Andrew Jackson’s parrot’, then I think we have different views on what that term means.” Ryan didn’t have anything to say to that (except for an annoyed eye roll), so the two just sat in silence for a moment. Then, all of a sudden, Ryan’s face lit up and his lips parted just the slightest, his eyes widened. Shane frowned in confusion. “Uh… did something happen?”

Ryan looked at Shane, turning slightly pink. “Oh, uh, n-no, nothing happened. I just… I think I have a pretty good idea for what we can do for our project.” He grinned.

Shane “I- g- wha- and you weren’t gonna tell me?” He exclaimed as Ryan giggled.

“I’ll tell you now.” He said, and he leaned in close, and holy _shit_ his eyes were so big and brown and beautiful.

“The history of ghosts.” He said, quite overdramatically but not in a joking tone.

Shane started to laugh. “Ghosts? The history of ghosts?” He wheezed, seeing that Ryan was pouting, his arms crossed. 

“What?” Ryan asked in annoyance, clearly not amused.

“Ghosts don’t have history, Ryan. What are we gonna talk about? The fight for ghost rights in the 1920s? The devastating Ghost War?” Shane chuckled at his own joke, and even though he tried to hide it, he could see Ryan form a bit of a smile as well.

“Shut up, Shane. No, I don’t mean that. I mean people’s beliefs in ghosts. How the belief in spirits affected different cultures throughout history.”

Shane was about to make a witty response, but then he hesitated. He finally said, “Hey. that’s not a bad idea.”

Ryan’s glossed lips drew into a smirk. “I have BBE: big brain energy. What can I say?”

“Well, you know what they _say_ about big brains…”

Ryan started giggling, “Shane!”

Shane grinned; he had only just met this boy but he loved the way his name sounded coming out of Ryan’s mouth. He wanted to hear that over and over. “They actually happen to have the smallest..!-”

Shane and Ryan’s antics were cut off by the bell ringing: the after school bell. Ryan nearly jumped, looking down in embarrassment; Shane found it adorable. Ryan saw that Shane noticed his startle and his cheeks turned a soft shade of pink. Fucking unfairly gorgeous. “I used to go to a private school. For some reason we didn’t have bells for class changes; only bells for when the school day started and ended. We just kinda knew the times when class ended. I’m not used to the sudden bells yet.”

Shane shrugged. “It’s fine, dude. Just thought it was a little funny, that’s all.”

Ryan smiled at him for a moment, and Shane smiled back. Neither of them talked, and Shane forgot to say anything as they just looked at each other. We wondered how Ryan was able to do his makeup every single morning, Shane would _never_ be able to wake up extra early just to make his face look a little more presentable. And Ryan looked _so fucking good,_ too.

“Shane?”

Shane blinked; he had been staring for too long, hadn’t he? “Oh, sorry, got lost in thought. It just… happens. You know?” Ryan nodded just a bit teasingly, a sympathetic smile on his face.

“Whatever you say, dude.”

Shane raised an eyebrow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I know you were staring at my makeup,” Shane tried to reply, but Ryan cut him off: “I know… it’s kinda weird because, like, I’m a guy…” He trailed off for a moment. “...But I really like wearing it, You know? It’s not like I’m wearing it to impress people, it’s only ever gotten me weird looks in the halls. I’m doing it for myself, and as much as the weird looks can get to me sometimes, most of the time I don’t let it bother me.” Ryan paused. “_Wow,_ that was a huge lecture. Sorry if that bored you.”

Shane stammered, “What- I- no! Of course not! That’s… amazing.” He finally decided on, which was really fucking dumb of him because Ryan raised his eyebrows.

“Amazing?” He asked. “That’s a new one. I think I’ve been called every possible word for ‘gay’, including the slurs, in the dictionary.”

“Well… yeah.” Shane Madej, you did this to yourself, now you just have to run with it. “I was staring because I was thinking about, like, how admirable that is. You know?” He shook his head, “It shouldn’t be a huge deal for guys to wear makeup. But it is, sadly. And you just do it anyways, because you want to and because you like it. I don’t know if I could ever work up the courage to do that myself.”

Ryan smiled; a genuine, happy, pretty smile that Shane wanted to see again and again. He’s sounding like a broken record at this point, but, _God_, he was smitten.

“Thanks, Shane.” Ryan said. “I don’t think anybody’s ever really told me that before. That what I do is _admirable_. That’s new… I like it. Thank you.” Ryan’s eyes sparkled as he thanked the taller boy.

Shane’s heart was about to leap out of his chest. And it practically did when a sudden _Ding!_ sounded from his phone. It was a text from his mom:

**Mom** ****  
**Shane! Why aren’t you home? Where are you?**  
_sent now_

“Oh, shit.” Shane muttered, and he got up from his seat, packing his things up. 

Ryan looked up at him with concern. “What’s up? Are you okay?” 

“My mom just texted. I forgot to tell her I was with you, still at school… she wants me home. I’m so sorry, Ryan, we can meet another time, I-” 

“Hey,” Ryan cut him off. “That’s fine. We figured out what we were gonna do anyways, didn’t we?” And Shane realized that yeah, they did. 

Shane smiled gratefully at Ryan. “Thanks so much, man. See you tomorrow in class, yeah?” 

Ryan giggled. “Of course, big guy. See ya.” 

_Big guy._ Shane walked out of the library, and while rushing home he was feeling a little extra light and giddy, smiling to himself. 

Today was quite a day. 

**Author's Note:**

> if i get hate for this im deleting myself from this plane of existence  
leave kudos and a review in the comments please!!
> 
> follow my antics on my tumblr!
> 
> this is dedicated to cat and bri, my two best friends who like to indulge in this au with me. love u guys! <33


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